1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and device for establishing a communication link by selecting an object from a screen and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for establishing a communication link by selecting an object from a screen without using an existing identifier such as a phone number, a barcode, a name, an address, or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
Numbers are one of the most typical means for selecting a target to perform communication in a wireless communication system. For example, a user communicates with a counterpart by using a mobile phone with the counterpart's phone number. This may be greatly convenient for the user over the remote counterpart, but not in a situation in which the user knows the counterpart but is unaware of his or her phone number so that the user is obliged to obtain the counterpart's phone number.
Meanwhile, Bluetooth™ enables a user to communicate with a counterpart within a short range without having the knowledge of his or her phone number; however, objects available for Bluetooth™ must be checked, instead of numbers, and one of them must be chosen, causing user inconvenience. Also, all objects having Bluetooth™ must be checked, wasting time, compared with a communication scheme allowing for direct communication with a counterpart. Thus, increasing of the range (or distance) for communication is burdensome.
The recently introduced Wi-Fi Direct covers a wider range, complementing the short-range drawbacks of Bluetooth™ but a counterpart is chosen by using numbers or a peripheral inspection, which, thus, is not convenient for a user with the intention of communication without prior information.
Attaching a barcode tag or an equivalent display means to each object and performing communication on the basis of the barcode tag or the equivalent display means require a database that matches the respective objects and the display means, so it would be difficult to apply this concept to various objects (e.g., an electronic device, a building, a person, and so on). Also, such a display means may be merely passively applied to obtain information from an object.
Meanwhile, RFID may include a means for obtaining information from an object and a means for communicating with the object; however, RFID also requires a database that matches the RFID to an object in a one-to-one manner like the barcode display means, causing an inconvenience.
When a ubiquitous service is to be provided, numerous ubiquitous devices must dynamically form a network. Thus, in this case, in establishing a communication link between devices, a method for selecting a device desired for communication with the address or name of the device is not intuitional and complicated, and the address or the names thereof must be known individually.
In order to solve this problem, an additional communication channel is created by using RFID, IrDA, or the like. The user may directly select a device he or she wants to communicate with by using RFID or an IrDA beam, exchange a specific ID of the device through the additional communication channel, and establish a direct communication link between the devices. When the communication link is normally established, a method of performing direct data communication through the existing wireless communication such as WLAN, Bluetooth™, or the like, may be used.
However, although a communication coverage of the WLAN or the like may reach tens of meters, the method of using RFID or IrDA limits a target device recognition distance by a maximum of a few meters, and in addition, a database for using RFID must be formed.